Operation Hurricane (1944)

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Operation Hurricane was a joint RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF VIII Bomber Command operation during October 1944 to "demonstrate to the enemy in Germany generally the overwhelming superiority of the Allied Air Forces in this theatre"^[1]

A Lancaster drops bundles of incendiary bombs (left), incendiary bombs and a “cookie” (right) on Duisburg on 15 October 1944

On 14 October 1944 in a daylight operation RAF Bomber Command sent 1,013 aircraft, with RAF fighters providing an escort, to bomb Duisburg. 957 bombers dropped 3,574 tonnes of high explosive and 820 tonnes of incendiaries on the city for a loss of 14 aircraft.

The USAAF sent 1,251 heavy bombers escorted by 749 fighters to bomb Cologne area. The 8th Air Force lost 5 bombers and 1 fighter during the attack.

Later the same day, during the night 14/15 October, 1,005 RAF bombers returned to Duisburg in 2 waves about 2 hours apart, and dropped a further 4,040 tonnes of high explosive and 500 tonnes of incendiaries for the loss of 7 aircraft.

By this time RAF Bomber command was not only able to launch 1000 bomber raids, but was able to launch secondary raids of considerable size at the same time. During the same night No. 5 Group attacked Brunswick with 240 bombers and a further 319 aircraft flew on various diversionary and support missions for the main raids. Over the 24 hour period, the RAF had flown 2,589 sorties dropping a total of approximately 10,050 tonnes of ordinance – the largest total of the war – for a loss of 24 aircraft, which was 0.9 per cent of deployed force.

Nearly 9,000 tonnes of bombs fell on Duisburg in less than 24 hours, but the damage to Duisburg is difficult to assess because much of the documentation including the final report (Endbericht), is not held by the Duisburg state archive (Stadtarchiv)^[1] . However the documentation which is available mentions "Very serious property damage. A large number of people buried." and that at the Thyssen Mines III and IV 8 days production was lost.